MCE Remote with VLC

Background:

At home I use Windows Media Center available on Windows 7. It’s a great program but it doesn’t play all the video codecs and file types that I have in my library. Even advanced codec packs like sharks “Windows 7 codecs” do not always solve this problem. To the rescue comes VLC . A media player that can handle almost any media file you throw at it. When using VLC however, I’m no longer able to use my Media Center Remote Control.

Say hello to mceRemote2vlc:

I decided to try and build an application to handle this, without incorporating this functionality into VLC, but using VLC’s excellent RC interface. In short it allows you to control a running VLC instance by communicating with VLC’s built-in TCP-server.
If you want to give it a try be sure to:

Go to Tools-Preferences.
Select Show All settings (bottom left corner)
Click on Interface->Main interfaces
Check “Remote control interface”
Click on Interface->Main interfaces->RC
Enter in the field “TCP command input”: 127.0.0.1:8765
Check “Do not open a DOS command box interface”

A Windows MCE Remote , the following eHome compatible remote devices should be supported:

Microsoft/Philips 2005

Microsoft/Philips 2004

HP

FIC Spectra/Mycom Mediacenter

Toshiba/Hauppauge SMK MCE remote

Hauppauge OEM MCE remote

Mitsumi MCE remote

Fujitsu Scaleo-E

Pinnacle PCTV Remote

Shuttle MCE Remote

Centarea Master Remote II

Supported buttons and default mappings:

button

vlc_command

Description

None

none

Power1

none

Left

menu left

navigate menu

Right

menu right

navigate menu

Pause

pause

pause

Power2

quit

exit vlc

PowerTV

none

Stop

stop

stop playback

Record

record

?

Rewind

key key-jump-short

go 10 seconds back

Play

play

play

Forward

key key-jump+short

skip 10 seconds

Replay

previous

previous playlist item

Skip

next

next playlist item

Back

previous

previous playlist item

Up

menu up

navigate menu

Info

key key-intf-show

toggle display interface in fullscreen mode

Ok

menu select

menu select

VolumeUp

key key-vol-up

volume up

VolumeDown

key key-vol-down

volume down

Start

none

ChannelUp

chapter_n

next chapter

ChannelDown

chapter_p

previous chapter

Mute

key key-vol-mute

mute sound

RecordedTV

f

toggle fullscreen

Guide

none

LiveTV

none

DVDMenu

key key-disc-menu

show dvd disc menu

NumPad1

none

NumPad2

none

NumPad3

none

NumPad4

none

NumPad5

none

NumPad6

none

NumPad7

none

NumPad8

none

NumPad9

none

NumPad0

none

Oem8

none

OemGate

none

Clear

none

Enter

none

Teletext

key key-aspect-ratio

toggle aspect ratio

Red

key key-aspect-ratio

toggle aspect ratio

Green

key key-deinterlace

deinterlace

Yellow

key key-subtitle-track

toggle through all subtitles

Blue

key key-audio-track

toggle through all audio tracks

AspectRatio

key key-aspect-ratio

toggle aspect ratio

Print

none

Down

menu down

navigate menu

Download:

UPDATE: The latest version includes a setting to start minimized.

Please remove the previous version before updating. To keep your mappings:

Copy the file “mceRemote2VLC.s3db” located in the users profile dir (eg “C:\Users\arend\AppData\Roaming\mceRemote2VLC\mceRemote2VLC.s3db”) AppData is a hidden folder so you might have to make Explorer show hidden files. Backup this file before installing the new version. Uninstall mceRemoteVLC , update to the latest version and copy this file back to its original location, overwriting the newly installed file.

I’m afraid your remote might not be supported.
The program only detects receivers in the list provided, it specifically checks for the deviceid located in the file C:\Program Files (x86)\mceRemote2vlc\eHome Infrared Transceiver List XP.xml.

There is a small chance that adding your device is enough to get going. If so please provide me with this new line so I can add it to the list.

For your other question, right clicking will work if you set this option in VLC’s configuration:
Go to Tools-Preferences.
Select Show All settings (bottom left corner)
Click on Interface->Main interfaces
Check “Remote control interface”
Click on Interface->Main interfaces->RC
Enter int the field “TCP command input”: 127.0.0.1:8765
Check “Do not open a DOS command box interface”
Save and your good to go.

Hi,
thanks for putting in the effort to get this working, I have installed as per instructions and it is working but only for the first command, after that it sees the command in your app but does not make it to vlc? set up is windows 7 32bit. Appreciate any ideas.

I own an ACER Laptop with build in IR receiver and the matching ACER Remote, but it is although supported. But the program just execute the 1st command (which works fine) and after that new commands weren’t send to vlc any more… (the program doesn’t even show them in “Commands to VLC:”

Alas, it doesn’t appear to work in XP. That is, assuming that the spaces are supposed to be there before the double hyphens. I entered it under Conrol Interfaces > Main Intyerfaces > RC, which is what I assume you intended for us to do. I also checked the box for it not to show the DOS box.

If there’s anything I can do, testing-wise, please send me an email. 🙂

Sorry for the late reply, I was not being notified about the new comments.

In an effort to optimize the program, I made a rather stupid mistake where it would only connect once, and never send the new commands to the running VLC instance……
I updated the installer, please uninstall the old version first.

You also can check if VLC is running with the RC interface by using putty, enter IP=127.0.0.1 and port number 8765, select RAW as the connection type, then click Open. If a file is currently playing in VLC, typing “pause” without the quotes should pause the current track.

please first select/click the entry “Main interfaces” now select the checkbox “Remote control interface”
Then expand the entry “Main interfaces” and click the RC entry. Then paste the following in the input field: 127.0.0.1:8765
You must restart VLC for this setting to take effect. Also, please install the latest and greatest version I uploaded today!

I can’t see in the video if you selected the checkbox “Remote control interface”, but the “TCP command input” field should not state “vlc –rc-host=127.0.0.1:8765 –rc-quiet” as this is used to start VLC from the command prompt, just use “127.0.0.1:8765” without the quotes.

Hmss, the VLC clearly is not activating the RC interface. Did you change the entry from “vlc –rc-host=127.0.0.1:8765 –rc-quiet” to “127.0.0.1:8765″ ?
Are you sure you checked the “Remote control interface” check box? For debug purposes, leave the “Do not open DOS command box interface” check box unchecked.
If you don’t see this dos box, something is wrong.

Ignore the prev reply. I didn’t see your message cos I hadn’t refreshed the page. 🙂

The big dos window popped up and I could play/pause/stop, but then I tried to check the box so the window wouldn’t pop up, and it stopped responding after that. I closed and reopened and rehecked the box, and closed and reopened again and still no dice.

Now the bad news. The buttons from the remote you have are nowhere near enough.

As I play many real DVD’s I’d like the normal menu and Audio/Subtitle controls etc accessible.

I think the best way would be a simple interface that has as dropdown list all VLC remote commands available and a simple “learn button” aehhhhm, button, so in your interface I could simply select (for arguments sake) “Cycle Subtitle Track” and then press the MCE Remote button I want this to map to (eg Blue in my case).

I also don’t mind having drop down liasts for button and action, but rather than have you try to implement each whim of each user, just give them the tools? Possible?

I played a bit more with your program. It already recognises all MCE Buttons correctly (by name), so that side is already covered.

Adding the complete MCE Mapping should be no big deal.

If you provide a config file (.ini or .xml) to store the settings I’ll produce and then email you my complete mappings for using the MCE remote with VLC including subtitle/audiotrack switching and all DVD Menu functions etc.

This stuff is especially of interest to all the Anime Fan faction, as many of the MKV files retain otriginal DVD navigation as well as mutiple sound/subtitle tracks.

For me it’s important as our household is multilingual, so we different subtitles etc on different DVD’s…

Hi there. The program works great except for one thing. When I press the Fwd (Fast Forward) button, instead of jumping forward, it just reduces the play speed by half. Am I doing something wrong or is it just a bug? Just letting you know that’s the only issue I’m having. Other than that, great work on the program!

Once I am finished (probably past the WE) I’ll send you the file with my mappings to include in the setup (I assume it is mceRemote2VLC.s3db), the aim is to sensibly map any MCE Remote key that could be of use in a “DVD-Player”. Then Users can change the default mappings to their hearts content.

The “Down” button is missing in the sqlite database. I will update this in the installer when Sir Shagsalot has completed the DVD-style mappings. For now please use the link next to the installer download.
Just replace mceRemote2VLC.s3db with the currently installed version in c:\Program Files\mceRemote2VLC\

Leave it to me to get it wrong. I don’t fully understand the list of commands. I (of course) tried to program the subtitle button first. I tried just “strack” (I don’t understand what the [X] means) and I tried “strack English” assuming the [X] was a variable. Both resulted in the VLC preferences box opening and covering the screen. If it was in fullscreen, nothing happened.

Use “key key-subtitle-track” as the command for your subtitle button.
This will toggle the available subtitle tracks.

Sir Shagsalot posted a link to all the available hotkey options.
Using putty, as I mentioned somewhere in the comments might ease your testing as it will show the reply from VLC. For example your strack command results in:

So I’d have to have a command for each potential subtitle track, rather than being able to just toggle throiugh them like on a DVD player? Like, 4 or 5 buttons set up for subs (assuming that my videos don’t all have the same number of sub tracks, the english track might not always be 5, for example).

For the hackers in the crowd, I am sure you are having fun, let me in on any neat stuff you discover.

For the rest, who, just want to download a package, install it and be set and good to go. Hold your pretty horses a day or two, between arend and me we will see you right in a week or so. I’m just really busy till the weekend, so I cannot finish the job as well as I wish.

Hey thanks for the help with “key key-subtitle-track”. You might wanna add the “ck” to your table. Being an idiot in training, I actually tried “key key-subtitle-tra” to see if it would work. Of course it didn’t! :p

I have subs working fine now, but it still pops up the VLC pref box whenever I hit the button……but not when it’s in fullscreen, so I guess that’s all that matters.

I wanted to point out that my main remote, an HP, doesn’t have the yellow, blue, green, & red buttons, just FYI. I have the HP remote, 2 regular Xbox 360 remotes, and 2 Logitech Harmony remotes (one XBox 360 and one regular), so I guess 4 out of 5 with the colored buttons aint bad. Do all MCE remotes come with those now?

First, we use Media Portal, but I need DXVA (Video Acceleration) and Subtitles and this does not work well, regardless which Codec Pack I try.

Either VLC or MPC-HC do play with Subtitles and DXVA. I always felt VLC had the edgo on picture quality (especially on my 80″ Projector), but remote control was much harder than MPC-HC for which Intelliremote had a usable profile and Eventghost was too hard work… ;-).

So Arend’s initiative came just right.

My setup now uses VLC as external Player in MediaPortal. I have set VLC’s main interface (use settings – all – interface – main interface) set to “remote control interface”. I also set in Playlist the “Play & Exit” parameter, so VLC plays the file and then returns to Media Portal.

In the Video Section it is worth disabling “Show Media Title on Video”, which omits the display of the file-name.

All this means there are in normal operation never any VLC Windows or Menus, the integration with Media Portal is practically seamless.

I have some mappings that differ slightly from the above posted. The main one is that stop and back are mapped as “quit”. This way I get straight back to Media Portal.

As Media Portal has issues with playing DVD’s via external players I have also mapped an unused button (TV Guide in my case) as “load DVD” using the following command:

My Remote is the quite snazzy one that ships with the OrigenAE Cases (OEM by Philips I believe) and the Media PC is in an OrigenAE S16T case, with a fanless Via motherboard and Pico PSU (so completely fanless), hence the need for DXVA (the CPU is too weedy to decode video streams without hardware help).

You mentioned “the CIR devise builtin and my acer MCE remote, could be added to the compatibily list!” I assumed you added your device to the file “eHome Infrared Transceiver List XP.xml” if this is the case, could you send me your modified “eHome Infrared Transceiver List XP.xml” ?
My email is arenddeboer at gmail.com

Hi, i have the Microsoft Media Centre Remote (model: 1039) RC6 ir and followed your VLC Player preference settings guide and installed the the Set-Up files. I use XP Home Edition not Media Centre. I can only get the Arrow Keys and the OK button to function however can’t get any other buttons to work so no transport buttons working. Your help would be appreciated, thanks : )

Hi Billwando, i got the remote working the following day. Did not realise the set-up files was an actual app. I used the app and it was a success. Worked great an ISO file DVD rip. On an AVI files some of the functions were not useable but on the whole i am very pleased with it. If the app could be used on BBC iPlayer and iTunes that would be great but i don’t think that it would be possible. Thanks for this : )

I would advice to use putty to check if VLC is listening on port 8765 and listening to commands. It’s a standalone application, no need to install. In putty, set the connection to raw, host to 127.0.0.1 and port of course to 8765. Play a file and then type for example pause, or info in putty’s connection window.

Somehow I missed the step to “Check “Remote control interface””, instead I had pushed the [+] to expand the “Main Interfaces” and filled in the rest correctly.
It now seems to be working fine – the 1st screen shot showed me my error.
Thank you so much for your little program and great customer service – you are my hero 🙂

True most home LAN’s dont run a DNS, but I believe the .Net code that resolves IP from name will use NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT) as an alternate if DNS resolve is not possible, I think all Windows machines maintain a legacy NetBIOS namespace. I’ve used this snippet of c# code 🙂

I am excited to try this, so I can use an MCE remote with VLC. After installation and running ‘mlcRemote2vlc’, it doesn’t seem to work for me. ‘Device status’ shows ‘disconnected’ . Yet, my remote seems to be ok and I can select different icons on my Desktop ok by pressing the arrow keys on the remote. Furthermore, XP device manager shows HID device, etc. I also installed latest updates for .NET 3.5, etc. Any suggestions? Did I do something incorrectly? What can I do to debug this? Rgds — JM

The latest beta source : http://www.arenddeboer.com/mceRemote2vlc.rar
Its quite poorly written. Started as a hack to see if I could control vlc with the media portal libs. Then added some buttons here and there, removed something here, added something there. In short no overall design and a lack of a coding convention. I hope to update this program one day so I don’t have to be ashamed while sharing the source 😛

Hey Arend,
cery well done! I love your little tool and use it very often.

But unfortunately it seems to be a little buggy (or it´s me for not getting it to work properly).

When your program is running and I go to the Media Centers music library, the Center missunderstands some commands. Pressing the skip-button, doesn´t work in the first place and then finally is interpreted as a “Stop”-command. After having quit your program everything works fine again.

The second thing is, that I´m not able to fast forward the movies in VLC, when having started it out of Media Browser. When I start VLC from the explorer or the desktop, it seems to work fine (10 second jumps).

Do you have any suggestions, to solve this problems?

But apart from that, it´s a fantastic small piece of software. Thank you very much!

Thanks. I just tested your first problem and MCE does indeed act strange when mceRemote2VLC is running. I do not fully understand why this happens since the remote buttons are not trapped or altered in any way. I might be able to prevent this from happening by temporary disabling mceRemote2VLC when it detects MCE running as the foreground application. I am not sure how this will affect other users as they may rely on the current behavior. (not sure about the use case though) Maybe this should be an option in the settings panel.
I suppose it requires a continues polling of the foreground window.

I installed the Media Browser plugin, but I cannot reproduce your second problem. Some questions:
– Did you set VLC to to listen for rc commands using VLC’s settings page ?
– Or perhaps by adding the –rc-host your_host:port flags ?
– Windows 7 / Vista / XP?
– mceRemote2VLC beta, or 1.0?

If I understand you in the right way, you wanna know, if VLC does react at all. If you mean that, I can say: yes it does it very well.

Even when I start it out of Media Browser, I can switch between subtitles and languages (I reconfigured the buttons for this commands, because, the defaults were making trouble with Media Control). The only thing, that doesn´t work (out of Media Browser), is the fast forward (rewind). Sometimes (in very rare cases) it makes the 10 seconds jump, but mostly it makes the VLC to drop to the frame, where it was right in the moment, I pushed the fast forward.

VLC doesn´t have this behaviour, when beeing launched without Media Browser.

I deinstalled Media Controll, cause after having your fine tool, I don´t need it anymore, but it had no effect.

I´m running Windows 7 64bit and the latest version, you posted in the comments.

But if you could fix the MCE Problems (perhaps as an option in the settings), it would be great.

It seems to be a problem of VLC itself. So don´t worry. Even when i just use the hotkeys on my keyboard, VLC reacts in an inkonsistent way. Pressing the button for a 10 sec skip (shift right) it jumps 10 secs for the first time. If I repeat this too fast, it jumps sometimes 7 secs, sometimes not at all.

So this is fine.

To avoid this behaviour, I redifined my skip and replay buttons on the remote, to make longer jumps, cause I don´t use the playlist and have therefore the skip button unused.

But if it would be possible to solve my first problem, I would be really glad.

No problem, but it will be placed on the todo-list.
Currently containing:
– handle IP as well as hostname in settings dialog
– fix remote issue’s when MCE has focus.
– Add option to start minimized
– Disable “button pressed” dropdown from changing on selecting a “Map to VLC command” entry in “Settings->create mapping”

In this (and I suppose future) Version the RC interface has been depreciated. For the time being it remains available as “oldrc”.

It may be due to the replacement of “RC” with “OLDRC” that VLC connection status is now always “offline” even though VLC received remote commands correctly.

Also, when installing this version of VLC you must uninstall the previous version AND use “clear cache and settings” and manually re-set everything. If you keep the old settings with the interface setting for RC VLC will more or less lock up.

I would actually suggest that Arend submits the work here to the VLC team for inclusion with VLC as build in interface. Pending that I can think of a few more things.

I do not use VLC with MCE/MyMovies, but Media Portal, so I do not have the related issues.

However, it may be desirable that MCERemote2VLC does trap the MCE Remote commands when VLC is playing media in the foreground.

As it stands some buttons cause misbehaviour in MP in the background.

For starting minimised, simply create the icon for starting MCERemote2VLC with the window set to minimised. Adding a setting item “start with windows” that creates an icon-copy in startup would help some users.

Great utility, I am unable to see that it is connecting to the VLC player but not the remote device. I have a nero liquid tv remote. In the VLC key settings, some keys are recoginized by the application but not ff/rew.

Is there a way you can add the hardware support for this ir usb dongle?

I would love to help you but I would probably need access to that specific remote. I’m also busy with a few commercial projects, you will understand that is my first priority.

– If the remote works in MediaPortal I might be able to make it work in mceRemote2VLC. But a quick check suggest this is not the case.
– You might want to try EventGhost It has support for VLC and supports a wide range of remotes. It’s just a bit harder to configure.

Hi there.
First of all thanks for the great work.
I have an issue though. I’m using a HP dv5 with vista and I have an HP IR remote.
All the buttons work fine except for the play button. The button is recognized as “button 110” by the soft, I tried mapping it following the instructions but it won’t work.
I looked up on some forums and other people have the same kind of issue with the HP remote and the play button.
I’m trying my luck here to see if anyone has any ideas.
Thanks in advance.

Sorry to hear your remote doesn’t work properly.
Are you saying pressing the button gives you a “button 101” message in the “button pressed” log box inside mceRemote2VLC?
If this is the case, I think a small update can make it work.

I don’t think VLC has such a plugin folder like iTunes where you can drop a dll and it’s pickud up. VLC 1.1. however introduced new add-ons and script framework options. So it integration might be possible now.

I however lack the time to implement this, at least for the coming months.

I tried to use Intelliremote for a while (with MPC-HC). I gave up. It takes way too much to set up to work correctly to the kind of level I get easily with MCERemote2VLC and it is expensive for a simple remote control helper app with so little real support for applications.

In fact, some of my earlier suggestions to Arend directly derived from my frustration with Intelliremote.

First thanks for your great work. I use VLC player 1.1.0 and Win7x64 . I download the setup.msi and install it. Then I made your recommended settings in VLC. Then I started manually mceRemote2vlc.exe and VLC player. My Remote Harmony One with “MCE” profile works well in VLC player, great job, great thanks.
But mceRemote2vlc.exe start every time manually is not for lazy people like me. So I created shortcut and copied to Windows startup. When the PC restarts mceRemote2vlc starts now, but first small problem: It starts in the “window mode” not as a tray, i have to resize it manually. there is a solution?

But now the big problem: I use Win7 MCE. To play my movie collection, I use the plugin “MyMovies”. In the MyMovies configuration I choose VLC player as the “external players” because he plays well MKV etc.. WMP12/7MC as “Windows Media standard” can not do that.
When I use the MCE plugin “MyMovies” select a movie and start to, MCE minimized in the taskbar, start Vlc player and go into full screen mode, the movie is beautiful and everything can be used with MCE remote. If the movie is over or I press “Quitt” on the remote, exits and closes VLC player and MCE would have to back to “full screen mode”. Sorry, but MCE is minimized.
I found out that it creates the current mceRemote2vlc.exe. Whether it is running in windowed mode or as a tray icon, MCE not maximized. Only when I manually mceRemote2vlc finish to maximize MCE again automatically. This is not very comfortable.

Is there a way mceRemote2vlc.exe only at the start of vlc.exe start automatically and at the end of vlc.exe terminate automatically again? Or a different solution to my problem?

Thank you.
You have a good point here and as I think about it, your suggestion might even solve other problems people are experiencing while running mceRemote2VLC in tandem with MCE. I’m currently working on a project that requires my undivided attention. But I will definitely look into this in the coming weeks. Together with the option to start minimized as this has been requested before.

Thanks for this great tool, but im having a bit of trouble in mce itself with the remote commands.

In VLC everything works fine but when im in live tv in win7mc while watching live tv the left righ up down and fast forward rewind info buttons dont work they all just act as a stop button in all kinds of media also not just live tv…

There is a known incompatibility while running MCE and mceRemote2VLC simultaneously. I will try to fix this by only starting mceRemote2VLC when VLC is started as an external player. It will probably take about a month before a fix is released.

This works wonderfully but is there any way to give priority to vlc when using media center? Right now i have vlc working as an external player so when i play .mkv’s the media browser plugin minimizes media center and opens vlc but my remote is still controlling media center. Any help would be great. I’m using windows 7.

Some remote buttons are hard wired and will always reach media center whether it has focus or not. These buttons should not be used to control vlc when they have to run at the same time. The play buttons for instance will start a recording even if mce does not have have focus if media center is in “Recorded TV” Nothing happens when it is on it’s main screen. This might be trial and error before you have a working set (I don’t use vlc and mce at the same time).

On a related note, I hope to start working on this project again in September/Oktober. I just don’t have the time right now.

@GF
I work with MyMovies and VLC (external Player) in MCE (Win7x64). I us a Logitech “Harmony One” Remote with MCE-Profil and a USB-RC6-IR-Controller. All Buttons works fine with VLC for me, but one Problem, read my post from 13/07/2010:

“When I use the MCE plugin “MyMovies” select a movie and start to, MCE minimized in the taskbar, start Vlc player and go into full screen mode, the movie is beautiful and everything can be used with MCE remote. If the movie is over or I press “Quitt” on the remote, exits and closes VLC player and MCE would have to back to “full screen mode”. Sorry, but MCE is minimized.
I found out that it creates the current mceRemote2vlc.exe. Whether it is running in windowed mode or as a tray icon, MCE not maximized. Only when I manually mceRemote2vlc finish to maximize MCE again automatically. This is not very comfortable. ”

I hope Arend make a solution for this, but we must give him time….

PS: I us MCE in Full-Screen-Modus, not Window-Modus. Hope its help you.

Hello, my first time trying the software, as it looks like it has promise. I tried the s/w upon a few trials and errors, and it managed to rewind, fast forward and the like; so, I will be checking back for updates. I have a multitude of players, GOM which I use constantly, Windows Media Center, which I never use at all, VLC which I use to an extent, and WinAmp I never use at all. I just like to use remote to rewind and fast/forward without having to use keyboard/mouse to navigate. Thank you so much for this, and will check back for more info or updates.

Okay folks I know it has been quiet lately, a big project is reaching it’s deadline, still much to do but there is light at the end of the tunnel 🙂 I will review all comments and decide the best course of action somewhere mid September.

@Arend: What an excellent piece of software!! Thank you so much. Just what we all needed. Worked out of the “box”.

I cleaned off WMC (MCE) from my HP laptop only a few months after I got it. It was interfering with almost everything, including making my laptop excruciatingly slow. While the MCE TV database was conflicting with a variety of normal Win updates. In addition the TV card that came with it, never worked and never will, as HP is pretending it doesn’t exist. However, it came with 2 remote controls! Both which I can now use for controlling my PC and now also VLC!

Looking forward to starting up VLC with mceRemote2VLC automatically and minimized. Finally, it would be a great idea (as Sir Shagsalot mentioned) to have your app included with VLC.

Thank you.
I might ditch WMC/MCE too for it is getting more and more unstable here. Doesn’t work nice in multi-task/monitor environments and the list goes on. The only thing left is ease of installation/setup and eye candy.

I’m not sure if I can help. I don’t see any reason for an MCE-plugin to minimize MCE while an external player is launched. Depending on the plugin used there might be an option to disable this behavior?

Arend, MCE not maximized because mceremote2vlc.exe is active. If not mceremote2vlc.exe works, everything works perfectly.
The reason is sure that the “focus” on the remote control mceremote2vlc.exe, rather than on MCE.
If I manually maximize MCE, the “focus” of the remote control is back to MCE.
One solution would be mceremote2vlc.exe automatically start and stop with vlc.exe.
Can you build it? Please.

Ralf: Do you start mceRemote2VLC from the MCE plugin ?
I tried with the Media Browser plugin and as long as VLC closes after playing, MCE is maximized again, this is a configuration option, or parameter to VLC (–play-and-exit) or use the Power2 button on the remote to send the quit command to VLC.

Guys I finally managed to fix the problem where mceRemote2VLC interferes with the remote control of MCE. It should be fixed now, but UNINSTALL the previous version before you update, alongside the download link is an explanation on how to keep your mappings. (if you made customizations) Please give it a try and let me know how it works out.

I installed MyMovies, but using an external player requires a paid subscription so I removed it.
All I can say is that it works in Media Browser. And I believe this has more to do with MyMovies or VLC settings then with mceRemote2VLC.

Hi Arend,
tried your tool and stuck with some strange behavior. When vlc plays in fullscreen and I put just a single click on the fullscreen with the mouse… NO commands seem to get through! As soon as I take the focus from the fullscreen away (I have 2 monitors) by clicking on and activating a window on the second screen… vlc receives all commands.
Ain’t that weird since the commands come over TCP and shouldn’t be bothered by focus or nonfocus of a window??
my config:
win7, hauppauge MCE remote, vlc 1.1.4
THX for a quick response!

It might not be that strange after all. When you don’t use mceRemote2vlc the play and pause button still work, the remote works as a regular keyboard press. So when vlc has focus and we press for example the Play button, vlc will receive the play instruction over it’s rc interface and by keyboard. The only option would be to detect weather vlc has (keyboard) focus or not, then decide what to do. For play and pause we should probably not send the commands. For now pressing the pause button twice (rapidly) pauses VLC when it has focus. I will think about this a bit more.

So you do think that these two mentioned input methods interfere with each other?
I’m not so into coding/programming, but no matter what commands come to the vlc task, it should be able to handle it, ‘cause in case there are two commands within a defined range of milliseconds, it still should decide to handle only one, but as we have learned …probably not.

Within autohotkey scripts it’s quite easy and works no matter of focus when you use e.g. the command “ControlSend”. Which means, that if you want vlc to pause whether it’s running in foreground or background, focus or nonfocus you could use it like: ControlSend, , {Space}, VLC Media Player
It should be close to Visual Basic, because ControlSend sends a “space”-keypress (which equals pause/play) to a window called VLC…
I don’t know how you did your program, but to give it a little workaround, wouldn’t it be the easiest way to kind of merge the two commands/buttons (Play/Pause) and instead set both equal to a “space-keypress” command, if possible? It would then toggle anyway between these options…

btw.: even if vlc is out of focus, so where only mceRemote2vlc should be working, I realize that pressing play ain’t the opposite of pressing pause. Which means that if I pressed “pause” while watching a video, I could only continue watching by pressing “pause” again and not play!!

When the windows built in function is working it is vice-versa. Play only makes it play and Pause only pauses. This imho sucks too, a toggle pause/play would be ideal 😉

sorry for writing again, cause I think that this is probably the right thought to start from, what I wrote in my second comment. THAT:
your “play” is NOT the “play” it gets native from windows. It’s probably also not a space-keypress command, because that does alternate between play and pause. mmmmmhh…

With either an older CyberLink remote or a new VRC-1100 MCE Remote I get “Device Status: Remote not found” I’m running Win7 64 bit and have made sure NetFramework 3.5 is fully enabled. Both remotes work with Windows Media Center.

I installed MCERemote2VLC, I tested it and it worked great. However, the next day when I tried it, it no longer worked. So I uninstalled it entirely. But now my remote control doesn’t work in Windows Media Center anymore.

Sorry to about your trouble. I however cannot relate your issues to something mceRemote2VLC might cause. It doesn’t change any settings on the host. No registry settings, no files are deleted etc. So are you absolutely sure you haven’t done anything else that might have caused it ?

Love this program. Question: When I first installed it, I was using the default vlc skin and everything worked great. When I switched to another skin, the remote stopped working with vlc (still works with MCE). Any ideas?

Hi Scott, I just tried a different skin then reverted back to the base skin. I couldn’t detect any problem with mceRemote2VLC. Maybe this is not related to the skin switching ? Did you try to reinstall ? If you want to try with a clean slate, you will have to manually remove the db file or better the entire directory: C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\mceRemote2VLC

OK. This is interesting. First, I uninstalled the app. When I went to the directory you mentioned, it wasn’t there. No biggie. I reinstalled, then tested with the same skin and the remote did not work. However, just messing around, under Preferences-Interface, I selected ‘Use Native Style’, then everything worked. I went back to my skin, which deselects ‘Use Native Style’, and the remote stopped working. Well, as long as it works. If you have any insight as to what’s going on, I’d be curious. Again, thanks for the help and a cool little utility.

Well it should be able to connect if setup according to the screen shot. The only option left is to check VLC really is listening on 127.0.0.1 port 8765. You can do this with a program like Putty. With PuTTy select connection type telnet or raw and type “play” while having a song on pause in VLC. It should start playing. There are more details about connecting with putty in the comments.

I realize this is an old post, but I had the same problem. The solution is to go to Tools > Preferences > Choose “All” > Interface > click on Main interfaces.
Make sure you have “Remote control interface” checked. Restart VLC and mceRemote2vlc.

Is there a way to use another button to skip more than 10 seconds? eg. 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 1 hour
Is it possible for a button to fast forward until the play button is pressed?
I’d also like the same functions for rewind.
My files do not contain chapters.

1) If you look at the command which is sent when you press Forward you will see: “key-jump+short”
You could change this (or map a new key) to “key-jump+medium”, or “key-jump+long” medium stands for 1 minute and I haven’t tried long.

2) try the “fastfoward” command, or “faster” command. “fastforward” forwards as fast as possible. “faster” increases the playing speed each time you send this command. The drawback with these commands is that the play button/command does not reset vlc to normal playing speed. You will have to map an additional button to “normal” in order to play at regular speed again.
Check out these pages for more command options: http://lircconfig.commandir.com/lircd.conf/configs/?c=65312d999d

Hi Arend: I’m using a generic WMC remote which is USB PnP, no drivers to install, on Win7 64. I have installed mceRemote2vlc and followed your instructions, but I’m only getting responses from Stop, Play, Pause, and Rew, just as I was before installing. When I run mceRemote2vlc from the start menu, the window says: “Device Status: Remote not found” Do I take that to mean I’ve done something wrong or that this is just one of those remotes that isn’t supported? Thanks.

Wayne, the only thing we can try is adding your device Product + Vendor ID to the list of supported devices. Since it claims compatibility it might just work. You can find the ID’s using this tool: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html
This tool will list the required ID’s. Look for VendorID end ProductID column. Add them to this file: C:\Program Files (x86)\mceRemote2vlc\eHome Infrared Transceiver List XP.xml

Thanks for the suggestion Arend, but still no luck. The ID tool showed it as being from Aureal Semiconductor, and I added it to the list as

following the formatting from the other lines, but it was still not found after rebooting. I also tried Media Player Classic, but it behaves very strangely. With an MKV video, the FF and REW don’t work, but the skip ahead/back buttons result in about a 30s skip, but with an AVI video, the skip ahead/back buttons both re-start play at the beginning, just as they do with VLC. Hmmmm…

This blog has issues with xml/html-like data in comments. I tried to show you some parts of the ehome.xml file but that didn’t work.
Anyway, it was worth a shot. I ordered the exact same remote because it is dirt cheap and my current one broke yesterday. I will let you know how that works out.

Please let me know if it works for you. I’m sure you’ll like the remote–it even has a mode to let you move the mouse cursor and use right and left clicks. In the meantime I’ve installed XBMC and the remote controls it perfectly. I’ve been using XBMC on an original XBox for about a year, not sure why I didn’t think to try it on a PC.

Hello i just bought a Vista remote control <- yes the name of it…. I have no problem using it in media portal or MCE on windows 7. However i cannot get it to work in your little nifty nice tool :).

I have added these vendor id because i was not sure wich one it 100% was.

On the manual it says:

Version 1.0 2007/03

ID NO: PAKL-F31VR901-00

Theres no driver required for it to work. it just uses the built in one in microsoft and then its working. Just out of the box. I manage to get VLC connected to your tool but thats it. Not the remote. Happy New Year.

This tool uses Media Portal as it’s base for detecting and communicating with the remote. But i did “hack away” at the source and removed everything but the MCE remote support. Maybe your remote is supported using one of the other “drivers” in MP. Did you buy it in a webshop? Do you have a link to this remote ?

Anyway, since my last post, I’ve installed a new OS (Windows 7.) So I thought I’d try this again. It works in VLC, but in a very limited way. That is, the “Play” “Pause” and “Stop” buttons work as they’re supposed to, but no other buttons do what they’re supposed to.

Incidentally, this is how it was when I tried it last when I reported my previous [unrelated] problem [just search my name if you need a refresher.]

So obviously, I’m assuming that there’s something that I have overlooked (both this time and last time) since the functionality for both times are identical.

Also [and unrelated] I can’t get my own mappings to register. That is, in the “Create mapping” box, I press a button on the remote control; it shows that I pressed it. But when I attempt to map the VLC command from the pull-down, the “Button Pressed:” pull-down forces itself to the default, ultimately not allowing custom remappings (I hope that makes sense.) Maybe there’s something I’m misunderstanding.

If only the “Play” “Pause” and “Stop” buttons work then it doesn’t work at all. These buttons will work regardless of mceremote2vlc. What is the connection state, does it detect the device ? Does it connect to VLC? It looks like a connection problem. Did you verify VLC is listening on the correct port with PuTTY ?

The mapping UI is flawed I agree. You best select or press the appropriate button, then check in the drop down box for the command you would like it to be mapped to. Then don’t select that command but write it in the drop down box. :-S. It shouldn’t update both ways but only select the current command based on the button pressed or selected.

But entirely for your information (for whatever it may be worth to you) back when the “Play” “Pause” and “Stop” buttons were the only working buttons, “Device status” was “Connected” and “VLC connection status” was “Connected” as well. And the “Button pressed” field correctly showed any buttons that I pressed. However, the “Commands to VLC” field remained blank. ?????

Hello!
I just tried to get the tool working with VLC and got a little frustrated.
It’s accepting the keys pressed on my remote control, it’s connected with VLC and it sends it’s commands to VLC. So what’s the problem for me? When mceRemote2VLC has got the focus, it’s working well. But if VLC has got the focus, VLC acts like if mceRemote2VLC is not installed at all. VLC is simply responding with it’s default actions when I press remote control buttons. I don’t have a clue where they are configured within VLC or how to avoid it. BTW, in these situations also mceRemote2VLC indicates that it sends the proper commands to VLC. Simply VLC is doing it’s own stuff.

I would appreciate any help or comments.

Thanks,
Stefan

p.s. I also realized that the mapping dialog has some flaws. But the workaround described above is helping.

Try 1.1.7 even though I don’t think it will make a difference. Do you have a “genuine” Microsoft remote ?
There are no logging options. The only think to find out whether this is VLC or mceRemote2VLC fault is probably by using PuTTY from a remote machine and see if VLC responds to commands when in focus.

That’s strange. To me this looks like VLC is not responding properly. You can test if this is the case with PuTTY and connect to VLC directly using the RAW option. Make sure mceRemote2VLC is not running. If this doesn’t work then it must be a VLC problem.http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
(just an executable, no installation required)
hostname: localhost
port:8765
connection type:raw
Press connect and enter pause at the prompt (while having an item playing in VLC)

Hello Arend, I’m using a Logitech Harmony One acting as a Microsoft remote in this situation.

Don’t worry too much about this. I tried this in the context with Windows Media Center 7+Media Browser and VLC as external player. I did use MPC-HC first without remote control problems. But this brought up other issues.
Since a few days I’m testing Mediaportal. Remote control is no issue there and the internal player does not need to be exchanged as far as I can tell at the moment.

At first I wanted to use VLC (if I could get the remote to work) instead of WMC because I had so many problems with codecs (mostly solved in the meantime with a lot of trial & error with the Shark007 codecs).

But I prefer WMC due to the excellent 10-ft. interface that the Media Browser plug-in provides.

I later realized that Media Browser could be used to activate an external player like VLC, and in addition to having no codec problems, the playback quality is better and sharper in VLC (due to the range of color adjustments and especially due to the sharpening filter).

About a month ago, I installed the mceRemote2VLC software and configured it as best I could per your instructions.

But the only remote functions that worked with VLC were play and pause.

Now I see from a post on Jan. 26 that “If only the “Play” “Pause” and “Stop” buttons work then it doesn’t work at all. These buttons will work regardless of mceremote2vlc.”

This remote installed without any drivers and works fine to control WMC. Do you think this remote incompatible with mceRemote2VLC ?

It is my understanding that this remote (like most others) is basically a wireless keyboard with only some of the keys. What I don’t understand why the skip or fast forward/reverse commands which work fine for WMC would be different for VLC, since those functions work if using an actual keyboard.

In your Ja. 26th post, you mention a new release. Has anything new been released in the last month?

Hi, nothing new has been released. Does mceRemote2Vlc detect your remote as seen by “Device status:” ?
What happens if you press the remote buttons in the “create mapping” configuration page ? If it does not detect the remote then I can’t do much about it. Maybe later when I have a bit more time at my hands I can look into supporting plain keyboards.

Hi! May I say – awesome utility! Many thanks.
I’ve been playing around with mappings, and everything seems to be fine. Except I’m struggling with chapter points in mkv files. I’ve tried chapter_n, key-chapter-next and key-next. All seem to have the same effect – they just restart playing the file from the beginning (there’s only one file in the playlist!). Is there a code I can use to select chapter points in this sort of file?

Thanks for your quick reply. Yes I did use “key key-chapter-next”. I’ve tried this on several machines with the same result, but I guess out of laziness I’ve been using the same .mkv file. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing funny about the file; an mkv file with H264 video and AC3 audio. Two audio streams, subtitles and chapters, all compiled into the mkv file using mkvtoolnix. It sounds like this may be a matter of differences between mkv files, so I’ll try a range of other ones and see if I can spot a pattern. Dan

I tried it with the test file listed here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/vlc/+bug/288526
Before that I added chapters using mkvtoolnix, but that file behaved like you described. I thought I might have done something wrong, but maybe VLC does not support this type of chapters.
Try going to the next chapter using VLC’s menu Playback->Chapter->chapter-x
If that doesn’t work it must be VLC/the file.

VLC does support these chapters. They work fine using the buttons and using the menus. But it must be some difference in the way chapter points are created in the test file and in mkvtoolnix. A missing setting perhaps. Thanks for your help. I’ll investigate further. Dan

New information: This problem is not related to certain vlc commands like chapter_n, but is related to some mce remote buttons which, even though they are mapped by mceRemote2vlc, they are intercepted or interfered by mce.
I don´t want to uninstall mce, because I use mce for playing photo´s.
When I map chapter_n under Numpad1 or Clear, it works correct. When I map chapter_n under ChannelUp or Skip, it won’t work.
If I avoid using these remote buttons, (aparently they interfere with mce, even though mce is not started):
ChannelUp, ChannelDown
Skip, Replay
RecordedTV, Guide, LiveTV, DVDmenu
Power2

Next question, how do I temporary switch off the interference with mce? Than I can use all mce remote buttons for VLC.

then select the option for Custom
expand chevron at right side of screen
then scroll down for category: Choose a default media player
find: Windows Media Center
then uncheck option: Enable access to this program
beside: Windows Media Center

I’m having a problem too. I’m fiiiinally upgrading to the newest version (wanna try to put it in my startup since it auto-minimizes now), and it stopped working. It acknowledges the first button I press and then stops, and not even that first button press is acknowledged by VLC.

It says this in the lower box:
Unable to open db
SQLite error
no such table: settings
Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: ipString

Yep, good tip. My official Windows mce remote broke down. I now use a cheap $9 remote mentioned previously in the comments. It’s a pretty basic remote that works much like a keyboard: http://www.nextag.com/1-Pack-Multifunction-PC-687744263/prices-html
Unfortunately it is not compatible with this program. I have to fix the old one before I can update and work on this program again, or update the program to make it work with this remote…

Previous poster to this thread; I use mceRemote2vlc all the time now. It’s perfect (just one minor hiccup for me.)

To preface, you’ve implemented “cycle through audio tracks” in the key mappings. But I don’t see a key mapping for “cycle through audio devices.”

You see, if I’m playing a video that has a 5.1 AC3 track, I must select “A/52 over S/PDIF” to get the sound to play over my 5.1 sound receiver. The annoyance come in when I’m watching a succession of videos that require “A/52 over S/PDIF.” Anytime one video finishes and the next one starts, it reverts the audio device to “Stereo” and I have to manually change it to “A/52 over S/PDIF” again; i.e., I have to get off the couch, walk over to my computer and select “A/52 over S/PDIF;” each and every time. Yeah, I know, life is so hard for me. 😉

hi,
I also have a small problem.
I set up everything just how you’ve explained it, then I open VLC and mceremote2vlc.
The device and VLC connection are both connected but the Programm is not responding to my remote control … when I want to do the mappings nothing happens :(((.
I’m using win7 and the hauppauge MCE remote.
pls help 🙂

I have the same problem as Gerrit who posted on 7/14/2011. I use your excellent program coupled with the MediaBrowser plugin for WMC. I m unable to map the chapter_p and chapter_n commands to the previous and skip buttons. Like Gerrit, I am unable to use the buttons he mentions because somehow the commands get intercepted by WMC before they reach your program.

No worries though. I set skip and previous to None and mapped chapter_p and chapter_n to the 1 and 3 button. All works well.

Indeed, the seek just jumps to the time specified. My bad. I also tried out the medium and long jumps, but they do not seem to work consistently, is that your problem too ? I tried it directly in telnet, so this must be something in VLC rather than the remote app I wrote.

Works perfectly, thankyou! To those wanting to use their remote to start VLC, you could try one of those apps which allow you to program a button/key-press to a function key which would open an app, similar to the way you can program a HID controller to press a certain key, when another button is pressed. Something like HIP may work. 🙂

I’m having a strange issue. The program is installed correctly and recognizes the remote and, as far as I can tell, sends the commands as it should. However, specifically pressing pause, while pausing like it should, prompts the Preferences window to pop up every time. Is there a simple solution for this?

I too have run into the problem described by Gerrit above, but as I’m running VLC as an alternate player from within Windows Media Center 7 I cannot disable it as you suggest.

My main problem is with the Replay and Skip buttons which cannot be mapped and, unfortunately, default to “previous” and “next”. This might not be so much of a problem except that these buttons are used in Media Center and it’s almost impossible to break the habit of using them when in VLC.

Since pressing either of these buttons ends the current playback it’s a big problem in a WMC setting.

That’s going to be a tough nut to crack. It must be somehow possible, but it might have to be done at the driver level. Which is not my area of expertise. Another problem is that I currently use a different remote which does not work with this tool..

Arend: Thanks. I posted a query on the Next/Previous problem to the VLC community forum. A VLC developer told me that you cannot suppress the interpretation of these keys in VLC. I suppose a VLC plug-in could be developed to do this, but that’s beyond the scope of my project.

I also tried EventGhost, but a bug in the remote control plug-in caused events from the remote to be lost under certain conditions. Yours is still the best solution to this problem. Thanks again.

i have found your soft, but my receiver is not working on it..
you have a near VID/PID device but not mine…
i’m using an old “ABIT Media XP bay” with IR remote receiver..
VID_04B4 PID_0101
it is detected as an USB KEYBOARD PIH

do you think it is possible to make it work with your software ?? (i already tryed to add it in receiver list without success…)

Just FYI for you to do with as you please:
After upgrading to Windows 10, my remote control did not work with mceremote2vlc. Although the VLC connection status showed “connected”, no button presses were showing up in the “Button pressed” window. Needless to say, I reverted back to Windows 7 (and all works just fine.)